Lag with Oblivion and the Witcher (Tech Help)

[Durxom]

Ok, now I may not be the most techsavvy person around, but usually, I go and check on System Requirements Lab to see if my laptop can run something, and for both of these games (Oblivion not so much, just some of the more grass heavy areas) I'm passing with flying colours, but the Witcher most of all, I can't play it above medium without it lagging up, and I even had to tone it down to low just to beat a boss....am I missing something here? What's going on...how can I need run these few year old games, when I can run Mass Effect perfectly on Ultra-High.... =/

My Laptop's specs

Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU T4200 @ 2.00GHz
3.0 Ghz CPU Speed
3.5 GB RAM
Geforce G102M -2 GB Video RAM

The Witcher's recommended specs

Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 +3000
3.0 GHz CPU Speed
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX or ATI Radeon X1950 XT or better

Oblivion's recommended specs

Pentium 4 or Athlon XP or better
3 GHz CPU Speed
1 GB RAM
128MB Direct3D compatible video card (NVIDIA GeForce 6800+ / ATI Radeon X800+)

And yes, I have all of the latest drivers for my card and what not...I'm just hoping someone more tech-savvy could help me out...=/

 

[Durxom]

I'm not running anything that I am aware of...I usually turn everything off, except for Steam which I have the games connected to, so I can chat with friends, but I've run it without it before, and it was the same thing...the only other thing on in the background is Avira AntiVir...which is barely on/using space.

 

[Doughboy0]

Are you running any mods for Oblivion? They are know to take up extra resources which lags up the game.

 

[Durxom]

Are you running any mods for Oblivion? They are know to take up extra resources which lags up the game.

All I have for Oblivion is the expansions, a mod that makes a Nord race with viking beards, and Low Poly Grass, which is suppose to make the framerate better...

But Oblivion is fine for the most part, it does get a bit bad when there is a lot of fog, and grasses, but other than that it runs perfectly, I'm more worried about the Witcher, the lag in that sometimes nearly makes it unplayable

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Get off your horse and walk. Worked for me.

 

[Durxom]

I am more of a desktop expert, because I think that laptops make me look fat. However, if nothing is running in the background, then you might not have enough graphics card muscle. Having just looked up your Geforce card, the manufacturer proudly proclaims it to be it's lowest power video adapter in the series.

Laptops are not known for being kick-ass game machines, not without paying gobs of money, or ending up with something that'll fry your testicles because it runs so hot.

My advice, save up for either a new, more powerful video adapter, or try upgrading your ram to as much as your laptop can handle, or get a more powerful CPU. In that order.

I don't think its the graphics card, because I'm going through all the other types of games on SRL, and it can apperently run DA:O, Crysis, and MW2, just fine, the only thing holding me back on those is CPU speed. But for Oblivion and Witcher, my CPU speed is matching or better...so...ya...I hate computers sometimes, they make no sense..x-x...but like I said before, The Witcher is my main gripe in all of this.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

If you're running Vista this might help:
http://alfred.co.in/how-to/witcher-vista-crash-fix-how-to/

I'm pretty sure that's the fix I used to get mine working. Yeah, I remember it was a nightmare to get running when it first came out, but I thought it would have been patched by now.

Also, check if you have any codecs running that interfere with your performance. I know this may sound really really weird, but I once had a problem where some of my games were stuttering at 5 minute intervals and I fixed it by disabling a codec. This probably isn't the case for you, but its a possibility.

Good luck mate.

 

[dududf]

http://download.cnet.com/Game-Booster/3000-18541_4-10913645.html

Download that, run it, try your game. It shuts down unnesscary process', and the link I gave you is a link to a CNET download from which thoroughly scans the files before they host it, so I can GARENTEE it's no virus.

Try that, and lemme know.

 

[Durxom]

http://download.cnet.com/Game-Booster/3000-18541_4-10913645.html

Download that, run it, try your game. It shuts down unnesscary process', and the link I gave you is a link to a CNET download from which thoroughly scans the files before they host it, so I can GARENTEE it's no virus.

Try that, and lemme know.

That went and sped both up a bit. It's not nearly as choppy in the grass anymore (I did a little run around in the fields) in Oblivion, I can still only play Witcher at medium though, I has to reinstall it from before though, and so I'm still not at the more lag intensive parts, but the cutscenes still slow down a bit, so who knows x-x...

 

[dududf]

http://download.cnet.com/Game-Booster/3000-18541_4-10913645.html

Download that, run it, try your game. It shuts down unnesscary process', and the link I gave you is a link to a CNET download from which thoroughly scans the files before they host it, so I can GARENTEE it's no virus.

Try that, and lemme know.

That went and sped both up a bit. It's not nearly as choppy in the grass anymore (I did a little run around in the fields) in Oblivion, I can still only play Witcher at medium though, I has to reinstall it from before though, and so I'm still not at the more lag intensive parts, but the cutscenes still slow down a bit, so who knows x-x...

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=24480846&union_id=3092

go there, read up on some of it, and turn off grass.

Trust me, I well exceed the rec specs as well, and the grass is brutal.

No idea why, sorry I can't be of any more assistance, OTHER then that I know theres a oblivion fix, that's a mod...

don't know the link to it sorry >.<

 

[Durxom]

Thanks for all your help, the game booster thing helped a chunk, like my Oblivion game was near perfect before, except for the grass was like walking through mud, but now its more like soup..not perfect, but a lot smoother. Hopefully, I can find a way to optimize the Witcher a bit better.

 

[fatalXception]

when the game turns into treacle-time, have a look at the Hard drive light on the laptop - is it going like the clappers? Laptop hard drives are normally dog slow compared to desktop ones (lower RPM) so that could be an issue, whereby textures are not being loaded fast enough.

Oblivion has a tweak (can't remember how) to preload textures more efficiently and I would imagine the Witcher has something similar. Or maybe even just switching to a different texture size might help (larger lower detail textures)

Mass Effect make much less use of texture than Oblivion and stuff like that for the foreground images which are mostly flat, indoor surfaces.

 

[Piorn]

I used to play The Witcher on my old PC and had framerate issues in large crowded areas, but it went much smoother when I tilted the camera towards the ground, somehow. But I guess this is not very helpful.

 

[MGlBlaze]

I used to play The Witcher on my old PC and had framerate issues in large crowded areas, but it went much smoother when I tilted the camera towards the ground, somehow. But I guess this is not very helpful.

It's because there was less on the screen to render. Less stuff to render = it needs less time to render what's on screen = less performance problems. It's pretty common, actually. Games update everything, but only draw what can actually be seen since the draw part takes so much more system resources.

 

[Durxom]

mega snip

Trust me, it's your graphics card, just because a bunch of video game distibution companies, which, remember, is trying to sell video games to as many people as possible, sponsors a browser-based app doesn't mean that it's gonna give you an unbaised, straight forward, or even honest approximation of your system's video game-playing capability.

Just looking at that rogue's list of companies makes me think that they're doing something terrible to your system every time you run it. Things like installing spyware, to tell these very same companies what video games you play when, for data-ming purposes. Did you have to agree to anything before you could use the application? If so, that's a bad sign.

I, on the other hand, while lacking the sponsorship of a bunch of niche-market corporations, have hand-designed and built from components five running gaming rigs to your "not being the most tech savvy person around", so I suppose you can act like you know what the problem is, after all, that's why the thread is called "Lagging Fun with Oblivion and The Witcher, right?

Have fun not running two-year-old games well.

I didn't mean to undermine your suggestion to me x-x I'm sorry if it sounded that way...

but the System Requirements Lab doesnt require anything to be downloaded...that I can remember, all it does is give a list of games you can choose:

System Requirements Lab

and then it gives you a read out one what you are missing and stuff...

Spoiler: Witcher Specs

..i guess i'm too trustworthy of stuff or something..i dunno..x-x

I was just wondering why my laptop wasn't running up to snuff for these things...

 

[Flour]

Very simple way to fix this for Oblivion, never played Witcher but it should have a similar option. Disable grass, or mess around in the config to reduce grass density. If you don't want to remove grass, disable Bloom and HDR.(or disable both for a huge FPS boost)

 

[Lyri]

How old is your copy of "The Witcher"?

I remember it used to have some horrible issues with running on Vista, My computer specs could blow it out of the water yet it would always lag horrifically & sometimes not even load past the loading screen.
They did release a patch for it on the official site but it never seemed to do me much good. Apparently the newer versions run alot smoother & aren't plagued with the same problems.